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The long-debated impact of right-to-work (RTW) laws took on more urgency with the passage of RTW in additional states in the twenty-first century. The impact of RTW on shareholder wealth of corporations located in four states is evaluated here: Oklahoma (2000), Indiana (2012), Michigan (2012), and Wisconsin (2015). Event study results show that RTW had a positive effect on shareholder wealth in these states, albeit an effect that was lower in Michigan than elsewhere. We argue that this is indirect evidence in support of research indicating that RTW hinders union organizing, raises profits, and reduces nonunion employee compensation.

Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2008, this study examines how employment precarity is associated with the transition to first marriage. Building upon research on precarious work and economic determinants of marriage, I employ various measures of precarious work, including health insurance coverage, the provision of pension benefits, and part-time work. Results from the discrete-time hazard models show that precarious work delays men’s marriage entry more than women’s. For men, all indicators of precarious work decrease the odds of first marriage by up to 40%. Compared to men, women’s entry into first marriage is delayed when they have part-time employment. My study findings contribute to the theoretical discussions of the causes of family inequality, which have suggested the precarization of work and associated deterioration of job quality as one of the leading influences on the retreat from marriage. Further, results of this study indicate that the spread of precarious work has profound social consequences through its impact on family formation. In light of limited empirical research on the impact of precarious work on non-work-related outcomes, subsequent research needs to continue examining how employment precarity and family inequality are intertwined with various substantive foci across societies.

Purpose – To consider the issues of cognitive freedom and neuropolitics via a comparison of d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) use in the 1960s and the emerging twenty-first century debate about nootropics.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon theoretical concepts from the study of biopolitics and on the tools of narrative policy analysis, this qualitative analysis uses multiple sources from scientific, mass media, regulatory, and the secondary literature.

Findings – LSD use in the 1950s and 1960s caused an unprecedented social confrontation with the consequences of a key sector in society deciding to use synthetic chemicals to alter personality and consciousness in ways that did not necessarily accord with mainstream society. As such, the era contains key lessons that can inform the new debate about neurological enhancement.

Research limitations/implications – The present study provides a starting point and historical context for development of regulatory policy for the coming era of nootropics and cognitive enhancement.

Originality – This chapter analyzes LSD use in the 1950s and 1960s not as a form of moral panic but as a technological adaptation that raised crucial questions about the possibilities and limits of psychedelic citizenship.

Handler's genealogy of postmodernism recounted in his address recognizes its origin in aesthetic disciplines and its somewhat viral transcription into social jurisprudence: “the postmodern concept of subversion developed first in language and literary theory, art, and architecture and then spread into politics and law” (1992a, p. 698). Although Handler's rejection of deconstruction stems from what he sees to be its political quiescence, its association with aesthetic critiques of modernism haunts his claims as one source of its essential conservatism. Aesthetic values, he implies, remain distant or distinct from pressing issues of political and social inequality.